Lynda Carter left Hollywood because she "didn't have a lot of substance in her life".

The 65-year-old actress turned her back on living in Los Angeles when she tied the knot with husband Robert Altman in 1984 and doesn't regret her decision at all.

She said: "I was very happy to get out of Los Angeles ... I had a large body of work already, and I didn't really have a lot of substance in my life. I spent a lot of time on movie sets - and that is being said in a way right now that I'm grateful for it - but I didn't have a lot of substance in my life."

Once she had moved out of LA, Lynda and Robert welcomed James, now 29, and Jessica, now 26, and says her children gave her a new lease of life.

She added: "I found that it was the person. It's always the people in your life - the friends and family that you choose to spend time with. It is every step you take that is the more difficult step in taking care of your children. The easy way out often ends up being the hardest."

The family now live in a suburb in Washington D.C. and says it gives them "plenty of opportunity to get passionate about" a host of different things.

She told People magazine: "I think that the intellectual pursuits in our family were much more the focus of our lives. It was never the stuff or the gimmies or the presents; it's the accomplishments and the sense of accomplishments in our lives. And living in Washington, you have plenty of opportunity to get passionate about a lot of things. It's a very interesting place to live, and it's gotten very heated over the past few years, but it's intensely interesting."